Augie Grill wins record-extending fifth Alabama 200

Casey Roderick used every veteran trick in the figurative
book but it wasn’t enough to overtake a dominant Augie Grill in the closing
laps of the Alabama 200 on Saturday night at Montgomery Motor Speedway.

The two Deep South aces took very different paths to the
first two positions upon reaching the final 15-lap dash to the finish.

Grill led all but two laps, while Roderick spent most of the
race outside of the top-5, due to an ill-handling race car.

Most of the field, including Grill, pit for their four extra
tires during a caution on Lap 110. Roderick decided to hold off on his tires,
saving them for a different caution on Lap 138.

The difference was almost enough to close the gap over the
final 15 laps, but Grill was too good. Roderick gave him one shot to the back
bumper but it wasn’t enough to remove him from the bottom of the track.

The win was Grill’s fifth in the Hunt for the Bear and came
by virtue of defeating the winner of the previous two Alabama 200s.

“That sounds pretty cool,” Grill said in a Victory
Lane interview heard over the public address system. “That was a hard
fought one at the end. I was hoping that race would have stayed green until the
end. I knew Casey would be better because he has 28 lap fresher tires and I
knew he would be tough.

“We got a little tight at the end, made it tougher than
it needed to be at the end, but we’ll take it.”

Roderick had several chances to move Grill beyond the one
shot with five laps to go, but wasn’t as aggressive as he could have been,
especially considering the bitter rivalry the two have often endured within Pro
Late Model competition.

“I didn’t mean to get into him when I did,”
Roderick said. “I got into the gas good off 2 and he wiggled a little bit
and I got into him and made it worse, backed off. We’ve had our run ins over
the years, but I respect Augie a lot and I’m not going to do that to him to win
another race.

“I want to do it the right way.”

Casey congratulates Augie on his Alabama 200 win. Casey fought a tight car all night. Came back from the back of the field to finish second. pic.twitter.com/K5kRNLc9Zt

For the longest time, it looked like the race would come
down to Grill vs. Bubba Pollard — the only other driver to have led (2) laps
on Saturday night.

Pollard stayed with Grill on each restart but fell off the
pace with a mechanical issue with 36 laps to go.

From there, it was a matter of Grill controlling the race
and Roderick working his way through the field. In fact, Roderick wishes he
could have taken his tires a little later.

“I wish we could have waited for at least one more
caution, but you don’t know when or if it’s going to come, ” Roderick
said. “He was faster by about a second and he would have lapped us, and
that would have been it.”

Ultimately, Grill captured his record-extending fifth Hunt for the Bear, having accomplished
the fete from 2007-2011 prior to Saturday’s breakthrough.

Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He is also the associate motorsports editor of Autoweek Magazine and its website, which allows him to cover the highest levels of the sport.